A geographic meta-database of caves and underground structures in Turkey
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A geographic meta‑database of caves and underground structures in Turkey Mehmet Erbaş1 Received: 22 August 2019 / Accepted: 10 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Caves and underground structures are voids that can be natural or man-made. Besides this geological meaning, these voids, with peculiar environmental features, are important for many disciplines hosting diverse natural and cultural heritage. Having large karstic rock areas, different geomorphological structures, and climatic conditions, Turkey has a wide variety of caves. The relevant studies report that there are more than 40,000 caves in Turkey. Due to this large number, it is vital that all the spatial and non-spatial information on caves must be collected and stored correctly within a database structure. Through storing, retrieving, mapping, displaying, and analyzing geographic data capabilities, the Geographic Information System (GIS) can be used to manage the location-based information. The purpose of this study was to collect information about the unexamined caves and underground structures of Turkey as well as create a dedicated cave inventory. Therefore, a new GIS application called Geographic Information and Management System for Caves and Underground Structures (GIMSCUS) was developed to gather information from volunteers as a voluntary mapping source. For this purpose, the PostGIS database was used to store all the location-based information; GIS was used to analyze and map spatial data; and a virtual globe application was used to visualize the spatial data. Running on the Intranet network that is widespread all over Turkey and known to a user-friendly design, GIMSCUS was easily accessed by many volunteers. Thus, considerable new data (47.64% of the total data) were collected by the volunteers and provided to users within a short time. It is expected that these data will play an important role in: (1) land management and urban planning for preventing unforeseen hazards; (2) culture and tourism which is an important part of Turkey’s cultural heritage; and (3) hydrology for hydraulic structure building. Keywords Geodatabase · GIS · Cave · Underground structures
Introduction A cave is a natural opening in the ground extending beyond the zone of light and large enough to permit the entry of a man (Davies and Morgan 1980; Gunn 2004). It is formed as a result of the dissolution of carbonated and sulfated rocks due to a series of physicochemical processes (Paksuz 2017). Caves have been attractions since prehistoric times (Davies and Morgan 1980). Humans have used caves as shelter, as places of worship, as storehouses, as munitions factories, as resting places for the dead and, in the last century, for recreational purposes. Many of these caves have, thus, become
* Mehmet Erbaş [email protected] 1
General Directorate of Mapping, Ankara, Turkey
part of Turkey’s natural landmarks and cultural heritage that must be preserved and protected (Zerhouny et al. 2018). With an area of 78
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